If you’ve been keeping up with our blog or the travels of our founder, Erika Block, you probably know a little bit about Poptech. For the uninitiated, here’s a quick rundown: Each year Poptech gathers together a class of Social Innovation Fellows from around the world. Although they all come from vastly different backgrounds, the common denominator that the fellows share is the ability to build social ventures that have the potential to create significant change. Each sees a problem that’s large in scope, and is inspired to find the pressure points within systems that could turn their particular challenge into an opportunity.
In this spirit of innovation, Poptech fellows and other interested folks convene, talk and get down to work. During the annual Poptech conference in Maine, each fellow has the opportunity to articulate just why they find their chosen problem and solution so compelling.
Watch, listen and learn as Erika walks through how Local Orbit can leverage technology to change our food system, solving problems for farmers, chefs and food service purchasers — ultimately leading us to a system where more food is sourced locally. Local Orbit’s platform offers tools for people to source a greater percentage of their food through local and regional producers – and the impact that ripples outward, well beyond the food chain. It promotes healthier communities — physically, environmentally, and economically.
The Senate passed the Food Safety Modernization Act on Monday. Jon Tester, the farmer-senator from Montana, authored an amendment that allayed concerns it would have a negative impact on small farms.
Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser call it “the most important food safety legislation in a generation.” Just Means has a summary of the amendment. And Senator Tester’s floor speech makes a simple, compelling case for the benefits of buying food direct from farmers in your community.
Food systems 101 in five minutes – from a smart, home-schooled kid at TedXNextGenerationAsheville. Here’s hoping the Future Farmers of America share his perspective.
In talking to people about why they buy or would consider buying locally-grown product, I consistently hear four main reasons:
I cook. Locally grown food simply tastes better.
I support my community, including farmers.
I want to eat healthier and locally grown food has more nutrients.
I’m scared about the overuse of pesticides on conventionally grown produce. I feel more comfortable buying from a farmer I know.
The interesting thing is that I used to think of the buyers profiled above as distinct groups: health conscious buyers distinct from foodies distinct from people advocating food justice.
Give Me a Reason to Buy Locally
But the reality is that you can start at any one point above, and within a short period of time—sometimes days, sometimes months—slide right into another. Care about taste most? Great! But then it’s harder to spray pesticides on the berries you grow in your garden or spray that toxic cleanser you use on your kitchen counter.
Like to support local farmers? Hurray! And you know what? It turns out their food tastes amazing. Funny how food tastes so much better when it was dug out of the ground that morning. With something like a tomato it’s not even a fair fight when you try local vs. a tomato that is picked “dead green” and shipped 1,500 miles.
Big CPG (that’s consumer packaged goods to you and me) companies didn’t focus on green for the longest time. Not big enough they said. Not enough scale. A niche market. Now everyone is jumping on the green bandwagon.
But before that word “ green” gets completely mangled beyond recognition, there is real cause for hope. Imagine that Hellman’s is coming out with a mayonnaise using cage-free eggs. Okay, that’s not local, but it will have an impact on growing practices. Next McDonalds will be featuring organic beef. Actually there was a rumor that was going to happen last year.
Most farmers who work farmer’s markets and farms stands are proud of what they produce. And many want to tell just how they do it.
There’s the grass-fed beef farmer who firmly believes you don’t need to use grain to finish beef cattle. Or another farmer who collects stinging nettles with gloves to provide greens early in the season.
Then again I never returned to the farm stand where the farmer talked glowingly about the power of Roundup, a herbicide that’s toxic to wildlife. I understand that it makes his job easier, but today there are a multitude of great alternatives.
Be Curious and Polite
Best not to turn the questions for farmers into an interrogation. Show your curiosity. Slow down. Listen and learn. Chat as you shop. Other shoppers nearby might pick up a thing or two. If the market isn’t too crowded, start slowly.
“Beautiful day. So how’s the season been going for you this year?” Sometimes better to start with “is there anything here you’re particularly proud of? Anything unusual?”
“When did you pick this fruit or vegetable? Is it ready to eat today? How do I store it?” Chefs will tell you that berries picked after a heavy rain are worthless. This year’s peaches were particularly insipid for the same reason. Some items like winter squash can last for months if stored correctly.
“Are you able to use organic or sustainable principles on the farm?” It’s so easy to ask “is this organic” but the fact is many farmers do not have the time and in some cases the money for organic certification. That doesn’t mean they don’t follow those very same principles on the farm.
“Does this produce come from your farm?” Small farms can grow an amazing amount of food but it is unlikely that they will have fruit trees and kale growing on the same patch. But that’s okay if your farmer gets produce from growers they know. It’s very likely they can talk about their neighbors’ practices. read on
I was quite sure of myself, telling him that the way he had been doing things
for 50 years was all wrong.
From guest contributor Rebecca Noffsinger: My grandfather, Howard Wing, with his three children: my aunts Norma (the blond on the left) and Martha (the braids on the right), and my father Paul Wing on his father's lap steering.
I put my first organic garden in several years ago. My plans were pretty ambitious, so my father agreed to help on groundbreaking day. He drove 120 miles from our family’s small dairy farm to bring the rototiller and bales of straw I needed. We spent the day working together.
We butted heads a little bit. He is firmly planted in the conventional farming world, with its nutrient rations and chemical controls. Now as Dad helped spread bone meal and greensand on the fresh soil in my yard, there was some grumbling going on. Where are you going to get your nitrogen without any N-P-K? Are you sure you don’t want to Roundup to get rid of weeds?
And with a new convert’s hubris I explained to him the reasoning and science behind going chemical-free. I was quite sure of myself, telling him that the way he had been doing things for 50 years was all wrong. After a while Dad quieted down.
As we were spreading the groundcover seed, he said thoughtfully, “My dad used to plant buckwheat,” and told me what he could remember of how my grandfather farmed when my father was a child. read on
I had the pleasure of attending the Michigan Organic Food and Farming Conference last weekend and was inspired by the vision and integrity of farmers I met who’ve built successful businesses, as well new farmers who are just starting out. Highlights included an intergenerational panel that addressed needs and resources for incubating new farmers, a session on creative strategies for farmland acquisition, and a panel about Michigan Thumb Organics (MTO).
MTO is a cooperative of experienced farmers whose individual members sell organic commodities crops like soy and corn. They’ve come together to expand and diversify sustainable local food production. Check out Chris Bedford’s video for their story.
If we want an ecologically sound local food system that’s available to everyone, we’ll need to figure out how to reinvest in…lost infrastructure. Small farmers can’t do it on their own. (Tom Philpott)
Philpott is a new farmer who left a career as business writer five years ago. Newsweek published his recent essay on the relationship between government farm subsidies, the cost of food, and how these funds can be better used to support small farms.
He looks at the consolidation of our food system; the loss of local food processing infrastructure; and the environmental, health and safety costs that have been enabled hundreds of billions of dollars in agriculture subsidies.
The Toronto Star sent Margaret Webb to find farms that produce the raw materials for junk food. The result of her search is a compelling and unsettling piece about the journey of food from field to factory to snack.
Ultimately, however, Webb articulates what many of us already know and are working toward in the way we eat, produce and distribute food:
Food is powerful. Change is possible with every purchase we make, in every link we forge between good food and good farming, and in every bite we take.
Follow the flow of food. That’s what any farmer will tell you. Because apples don’t grow in supermarkets.…to get to the root of the exploding obesity epidemic, I went in search of a junk food farm.
Such farms are not so easy to spot. No fields of Dorito bags waving in the breeze, no orchards blooming with soda pop, no soil bursting with 99-cent burgers.
Farmer-to-farmer networks have shared collective wisdom long before online social networks. Stephanie Rittman’s 1996 study of grass-roots farmer networks in Wisconsin identified 20 successful networks which “assume that each person has valuable knowledge and experience to contribute.”
Alison Hockenberry writes about Farm Radio International, a 30-year old network of radio stations and broadcasters in Africa, Asia and Latin America that enables small scale farmers to share practical knowledge:
Much has been made of the Internet revolution, but the genius of communicating ideas across borders does not necessarily require cutting edge technology. In fact, for many people, there’s one good old-fashioned technology that has a greater power for change: radio.
For people who live in remote rural areas around the globe, without easy access [to] computers and who don’t read or speak the most common languages of the Web—English, Spanish, French—the Internet is not much use. But a global exchange of ideas and information happens anyway, in part thanks to Farm Radio International.
Farm Radio brings the ideas and advice of small-scale farmers all around the world to fellow listeners who in turn send their own tips and advice.
